More, he was the singer of her
dreams, who had for months filled her thoughts with music and her
heart with a strange longing, being until now a voice Only. There he
stood looking straight at her,--she was not mistaken,--as though to
say, "I have done it for you, and for you only." A woman must be more
than marble to feel no pride in the intimate knowledge that a great
public triumph has been gained solely for her sake. She must be colder
than ice if she cannot see her power when a conqueror loves her.

The marble had felt the fire, and the ice was in the flame at last.
Nino, with his determination to be loved, had put his statue into a
very fiery furnace, and in the young innocence of his heart had
prepared such a surprise for his lady as might have turned the head of
a hardened woman of the world, let alone an imaginative German girl,
with a taste for romance--or without; it matters little. All Germans
are full of imagination, and that is the reason they know so much. For
they not only know all that is known by other people, but also all
that they themselves imagine, which nobody else can possibly know. And
if you do not believe this, you had better read the works of one
Fichte, a philosopher.

I need not tell you any more about Nino's first appearance. It was one
of those really phenomenal successes that seem to cling to certain
people through life. He was very happy and very silent when it was
over; and we were the last to leave the theatre, for we feared the
enthusiasm of the crowd. So we waited till everyone had gone, and then
marched home together, for it was a fine night. I walked on one side
of Nino and De Pretis on the other, all of us carrying as many flowers
as we could; Mariuccia came behind, with the cat under her shawl. I
did not discover until we reached home why she had brought the beast.
Then she explained that, as there was so much food in the kitchen in
anticipation of our supper, she had been afraid to leave the cat alone
in the house, lest we should find nothing left to eat when we
returned. This was sufficiently prudent for a scatter-brained old
spendthrift like Mariuccia.

That was a merry supper, and De Pretis became highly dramatic when we
got to the second flask.

CHAPTER VII

On the day following Nino's _debut_, Maestro Ercole de Pretis found
himself in hot water, and the choristers at St. Peter's noticed that
his skull-cap was awry, and that he sang out of tune; and once he
t